The Innocents
by brooke92d
Summary: Nina and Addison are in trouble. This is a little one shot to introduce my two characters into the Walking Dead. It's short but if there is good reception I will upload the full stories and we'll get to know a little more about the girls.


I was running through the forest; my feet were killing me in my tall boots and high socks as I pounded across the leaf strewn forest floor. I kept getting little nicks and cuts on my bare thighs and wrists from low hanging branches; my tight cotton playsuit and long woollen vest did nothing to help. I panted hard for breath and stopped myself, leaning against a tree for support, my long, silver grey hair sticking to my forehead with disgusting amounts of sweat.

I waited impatiently for Addison to catch up. She came hobbling into view, sporting a bloody calf, bruises on her wrists and neck and a furious look on her face. Her strawberry blonde hair was in disarray and her beauty spotted face looked at me angrily through the trees.

"You couldn't wait for me?" She bit, reaching my tree and leaning hard against it to support herself.

"I am waiting for you," I retorted. I had caught my breath and moved to start moving through the forest once more, looking over my shoulder in caution. I looked at the wound on her calf and screwed up my face; it was still bleeding freely as neither of us knew how to bandage a wound like that, not that we had anything to use for a bandage. I looked at her face which was much paler that it should have been; she had always been fairer then me but right now she looked sickly. I needed to get her help and fast.

I moved back to her and slung her arm across my shoulder, feeling her sweat there and cringing inwardly. Hesitantly I took a step but I had to bite down hard on my lip to stop from screaming; all her weight was on my fractured clavicle but she couldn't walk herself. So biting down hard I helped her walk.

"What are you doing?" She asked. "Your collar,"

"I know," I replied through gritted teeth. "But I think I can hear the some of the others behind us, and we need to get as far away from them as we can."

I wasn't lying, I knew Jervais would be furious that me and Addi had escaped and he had definitely sent people after us; I knew because I heard them when we had stopped just after she had been caught in the bear trap. I didn't want to freak her out but I didn't want to know what they would do to us if they found us.

"We need to get to a town or something," I said; reassurance wasn't really my thing but I was terribly worried about her.

"Why," she whined. "Why can't we just rest here?"

"Because," I said, trying not to snap at her. "We need to find cover, it's going to be night soon and I am not sleeping I the forest one more night."

"But you said Matthew would be there," she said. I turned my head to her in shock; had I heard right? Matthew was a guy from our senior class that I had once hooked up with but neither of us had seen him long before the start of the apocalypse. Her incoherent thoughts really scared me and no matter how exhausted I was, no matter how much my feet ached and my stomach rumbled I had to keep going.

We walked until the forest started to darken around us; I was starting to give up on finding a place to sleep tonight when I caught the tell-tale thinning of the forest trees. I could see the forest thin out along the horizon and faintly make out the geometric shapes of buildings and even a church steeple but Addison was slumped in my arms. She was so pale and such a dead weight in my arms that my heart was terrified. She hadn't spoken in a while even when I kept talking to her, trying to keep her conscious, all she managed was a weak moan or little squeak.

We reached the town and my heart dropped; Walkers were milling about everywhere. But I had to keep my head, so as silently as I could, hoping that Addison wouldn't let out an inopportune moan I hauled her into the first office building along the street.

"Nina," she groaned.

"Shh," I shushed her closing the door behind us.

I dragged her behind the reception desk and lay her on the floor; with the last ounce of strength I could muster I dragged the filing cabinet over to the gap in the desk, giving us a relative space to camp out. I fell onto the floor beside my now unconscious friend. I drew my knees up to my chest and rested my forehead against them; I hadn't cried in a while and I couldn't afford to go to pieces now. But I honestly had no idea what to do. Jervais was still after me and would stop at nothing to get me back, it looked like Addison was suffering terribly and I had no idea how to help her and it was my first time looking after myself since the beginning and I had no idea how.

I needed a miracle.

I woke up cursing as the late morning sun hit me in the face through a tiny window; I had overslept and I could hear groaning and cawing beyond the boarded glass doors as those things milled about in the street, drawn by the smell of Addison's blood. I hastily leapt over the reception desk and began rifling around the office looking for absolutely anything I could use to keep those things away from us.

I found a metal ruler with a sharp edge, a few boxes of pens, a pair of scissors and a long extension cord. I picked up the scissors and further into the office; I found a paper slicer and bent the blade back as far as I could to break it off. It wasn't easy and by the time I was done I had blisters on the palms of my hands.

I also searched for anything to wrap Addison's wound and maybe something to eat. I was just about to explore the tea room when I loud bang from the front door caught my attention. I quickly moved back to the door but the sound of the Walkers pawing at my door was mixed with something else. It was voices and the sounds of guts splashing against the pavement; my first thought was of Jervais but the southern accent definitely did not belong to him.

"What they tryin' to get at then?"

"Greedy bastards," another man's voice said. "So many of them," he added.

I was so torn; thinking of whether to open the door and get them to help us, or to try and pick Addison up and run away. I hesitated too long and I heard the door I forgot to lock open; instinctually I raised the paper cutter to take a swing at the head. But before I could connect with skull, a strong hand swung out and caught my arm.

"Easy there," I heard a deep voice grumble. I panicked and tried to wrench my weapon free. "Easy," he said again. I looked up into a weathered tanned face, blue eyes and scruffy sandy hair of a man. He was standing alongside two others, a young Asian man and a woman with shortly cropped brown hair.

"I think you scared her Daryl," the Asian guy said.

"I'm not scared," I said defensively. "I thought you were someone else," I said. The three people barged their way into my hiding place and used the cabinet to barricade the front door; when the two men moved it Addison was clearly visible slumped on the floor. The woman collapsed to her knees and looked her over; while she was looking at Addison I felt someone grab my wrist; the man named Daryl was looking at the bruises there. I jerked my wrist out of his grip and hissed in pain as my clavicle twinged.

"What happened to you two?" He asked.

"Lots of stuff," I replied evasively. "Can you help her?"

"Yeah," the woman said as I crouched down next to her. "She should be fine, the wound's not too bad it just hasn't been treated right."

"I'm Nina," I said. "Nina Leighton."

"Ooh, full name," Daryl teased me.

"What?" I pouted. "That's my name," I said.

"I'm Glenn and this is Maggie and Daryl," The Asian guy said. "We'll help your friend," he said.

"Why?" I asked suspiciously.

"You don't need a reason to help people," Maggie said kindly. "We have food and shelter and my daddy can fix up your friend's wound."


End file.
